CatValente
My body is bound with guitar strings, nipples like fawn's hooves strumming E minor chords and finger-picking a Path through resonant briars, redolent of the desert bellies of blue lizards. A penner of coalescing words that flow in strident rivulets of the deepest violet. Or, y'know, a really pretentious genre writer by the name of Catherynne M. Valente. Her user handle used to be "yuki_onna," but in 2012 she started using her real name instead — because the old handle was Japanese, and some other crazy people think it's appropriative! She claimed that she originally took the username to force herself to identify with Japan, which obviously failed. But she wants you to know she isn't a weeaboo who fetishizes and objectifies all Japanese things while placing the country on a shiny pedestal of admiration. She fetishizes and objectifies Japanese people in her books while holding the real ones in deepest contempt, thank you very much. The post about her hikikomori life in Japan and loathing thereof has been flocked since to preserve whatever SJ cred she unexplainably holds. Most infamously, she has repeatedly asked her flist for money to bail her out of her own stupidity, such as buying a house on the coast of Maine that she couldn't possibly afford. "Wow...there is an entire wiki about what a shitty person I am." '' - @catvalente on Twitter, August 3, 2012 Threads: *On her cultural appropriation *In which she fangirls Jacob from TWOP, her fellow pretentious purple-prose writer. *General thread about Valente, with samples of her prose. *And there's Valente again, asking for money. Again. *Nobody writes steampunk the way Valente thinks they should. *The infamous talking bowels. *Cat Valente and the Killswitch creepypasta *"I cannot afford to buy a house because I am a freelance writer and want to live on an island!" *Most narcissistic post, EVER. Three paragraphs of verbose buildup, then: "If you were to make of me— of my actual, physical body —a work of art, what would it be?" *Explaining the Valente-hate to someone who doesn't get it. *Cat's Deep Thoughts™ on the Oscars. In which it is revealed that she "experienced" Japan by staying in her apartment and surfing the internet. For two years. *Valente threatens to leave EllJay. LOL: "She had this whole rant years and years back about how people who *combed her prose* for typos had small souls, it was special." *"Double bonus fail-at-life points for a blog post about ... blogging and receiving instant feedback which has an Emily Dickinson usericon." Also, Valente actually writes the phrase "thinking thinkerly thoughts." *Nick Mamatas, 1; Cat Valente, 0. *"I bought a couple of Catherynne Valente's cheap pdfs... This is the worst writing I've ever read. It's the extremes of the purple pagan, womb feminist clap trap... I'm left feeling like I've paid $9 to watch the author fellatio herself with an adverb." *"How dare Osama's death interfere with my Fairy book launch?" *She announces her plan to sell her "best" blogposts. *How dare people not like her book?? *Being an author = being a medieval serf. *[http://fail-fandomanon.livejournal.com/18760.html?thread=81073480 "''Water For Elephants is not Carnivale! yuki_onna is distraught!"] With revelation of how she got her "expertise" on Russia. *"still can't believe yuki onna gets paid for this shit" — linking to this piece, which contains the sentence [http://fail-fandomanon.livejournal.com/18956.html?thread=82796812#t82796812 "When I got up off of the horse blanket, marigold blossoms spilled out of me like Coyote’s seed."] A comment from this thread: "Yuki-onna calling anyone or anything else 'full of itself' is like the pot calling the kettle a crepuscular refuge of savage dark cum-blossoms." *"So! When I hit post, this entry will propagate to Livejournal, Dreamwidth (same username), Twitter (@catvalente), Facebook, and my BRAND NEW COMPLETELY REVAMPED AWESOME WEBSITE catherynnemvalente.com." *Pantryslut calls Valente out for romanticizing stay-at-home motherhood. *She makes a "book" out of her blogposts. One nonny in that thread mentions Valente's ill-advised attempt to keep ducks: "Failed to put a roof on her duck coop, wrote a heartbroken post about how an owl ate her duck, and then wrote a heartbroken ETA about how the owl ate another duck an hour later because she hadn't put on a roof or brought the ducks inside." *"It tried to be deep; it failed. I'll take most of Catherynne Valente's books for 2000, Alex." *Valente gets some attention on NPR. *Some of Valente's posts on Japan, courtesy of Wayback Machine *Valente makes the Readercon harassment scandal all about her: her fame and status as an author (who of course shouldn't be subject to harassment by some prole fan), her looks, and her Tiptree prize. This thread also heralds the creation of a haiku all about yuki_onna. *Valente posted on her journal to enthuse about appropriating British culture. Author Kari Sperring (la_marquise_de on LJ) commented to remark that her country is not a theme park and that there is a long history of continuing oppression of the Welsh. This caused Winterfox and co. to flip out because, of course, as all good SJW know, white people cannot be oppressed. Later, someone confronted Valente about not telling Winterfox off in general, to which Valente acted in typical fluttery, faux-confused fashion and proclaimed that she was being held accountable for someone else's actions. (Someone on the other side of the world, even!~) *Sperring later confessed that that argument actually drove her to attempt an overdose, to which Valente responded: "What you said to me sunk me into a hole for weeks, drove me away from the Internet, left me in tears and unable to pull myself out of any of it. ... if RH bears fault for what her words did to you, you bear fault for what yours did to me. You destroyed me, Kari, for weeks." (FFA thread.) *What do you mean the internet is forever? "And these people...they've been following me since I started the journal. Ten years ago. They reference decade old posts." *Cat Valente, Again: Nonny is gobsmacked at the culture appropriation in The Orphan's Tales and why SJ people don't notice. *In a "Things You Wouldn't Admit to Unanon" thread: "I wish I could write like Catherynne Valente." Other nonnies provided useful advice. *A nonny waxed poetic about Ms. Valente (also posted here). *''"Cat Valente is going to Melbourne."'' *Oh, Viz, no. — "Nick Mamatas is getting to 'adapt' one of the Haikasoru-released novels for an English-original comic, and Valente is getting included in the 'essays' book using Royale as the topic." (Jul. 19, 2013) *A late-April 2014 comment about Valente referring to herself in the third person on her blog turned out to be overstating the case. However, another nonny took the opportunity to mention that Valente's book ''Palimpsest ''describes anal sex "as a 'burning, searing pain' that magically transforms to pleasure when the prostate is found." *"Cat Valente takes a cab ride in London and OMG it's the worst ever you guise! She writes a three-thousand-word-long whine about a bad cabbie. It was almost kind of impressive." Category:SJ Failhards